adminA retired Anglican versus a retired Catholic
An ideological comrade and a workmate who also contributes in this paper, Micheal Mhlanga has vehemently dismissed some of the tenets of South-Africa’s recent Rhodes Must Fall Campaigns. The underpinning premise of Mhlanga’s submission is that history cannot be erased by dismantling physical colonial structures. In Mhlanga’s view, the same colonial infrastructure represents the scars of the physical capture of Black territorial power. According to Mhlanga, “decolonising the space” as promulgated by Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni merely represents that which we did when we inherited colonial boundaries we now call “our countries”. According to Mhlanga “decolonising the space” is an inadequate repetition of decolonisation from an elementary level. In itself, this is a clean-up process of the reminders of physical colonial dominance at the expense of mental colonisation — whose fires can only be extinguished by demeaning the meaning of infrastructural colonial heritage.
This view is also cognisant of the fact that we did not only inherit colonial boundaries, but we shamelessly espoused and embraced the attitudes of colonial supremacy and in the process the real plot of Uhuru. Consequently, Mhlanga believes in the hesitant conservation of colonial artefacts for all to see the ruinous effects of colonialism in assassinating the socio-economic and political progress of the continent. At some point, I used to assume that my comrade is a conserve of coloniality because he is from a Catholic background. More conversations with him made me partially understand that it is indispensable for us to preserve some colonial infrastructure as a means of reminiscing the crude and endlessly elongated path we have crisscrossed to find the dignity stolen from us by explorers and plunderers of Africa. On the other, I have remained opposed to the idea of preserving these structures for the purposes of making sense of the past. This is because the supposedly departed past still feeds on our contemporary socio-political and economic livelihoods as the formerly colonised. Nonetheless, I feel we are not redeemed from coloniality as an erstwhile episode in as much as we are its victims at the present moment. It is for this reason that we still celebrate coloniality in its varying psychological forms. As it stands, religion has proved to be an industrious tool of the project of coloniality all over Africa.
Today, Africans proudly embrace the idea of being recognised in colonial spiritual terms: “We are Anglican”, yet the term Anglican means “of England”. The name of this church and how it upholds its sovereign origins speaks volumes to a globalised patriotism to England through religion. Be it in Malawi, Kenya, South-Africa, Ghana, Spain and Brazil; it is still called the Church of England. This is the same way we have adopted globalised ideological patriotism to the West through mimicry of their political behaviour. I do not mean to denigrate the liturgical subscribers of the Church of England who are not English by descent and are not of England. It is unfortunate I picked the Anglican Church as my example here. I thought it would be less offensive since I am from an Anglican family background. I could have picked the Catholic Church and used it to explain the same point, but I guess that would have been more offensive coming from me. Likewise, there would have been less harm if the Catholic Church was used in this context as an example by Micheal Mhlanga considering his Catholic background. Likewise, I could not even use the Seventh Day Adventist Church and its American origins, because in last week’s article I drew parallels between the Rhodesian legacy and the recent American election to bring out the subject matter of that instalment. So it’s a bit wise to give Americans some fresh air for now.
In search of decolonial equivalence
My background as a retired Anglican and that of my friend — a retired Catholic may be treated as rebellion to conventional orders or social normalcy. However, it takes a sagacious anti-imperial eye to observe how much we represent a common feature of Africans’ disillusionment curated by colonial thought models deceitfully packaged as social morals. These Western thought antiques and all the concealments they present themselves in have no place in the modern world. Therefore, it is astounding to come across a book which exalts coloniality and proclaims that it “will never die”. An encounter with this publication by Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock (1993) sharply reminded me how Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni problematises anti-Rhodes Must Fall proponents whose position interchangeably advocates for the longevity and immortalisation of the coloniality of the university. Therefore, from a decolonial standpoint Prof Ndlovu-Gatsheni argues: “It is important that we must understand that when we are talking about Rhodes . . . we are talking about a symbol of enslavement, a symbol of dispossession, a symbol of colonialism, a symbol of apartheid, a symbol of racism. To me it will be surprising that there is any civilisation or culture which would claim such a person as though he must be preserved as part of their culture.”
I concur with Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatheni as I am firmly convinced that all categories, ways and means of coloniality must be rejected. Colonial literature must be read to deconstruct the meaning in its myths and crushing the superficial prejudices it cheaply retails to minds which must be immersed in decoloniality. Of course, beneficiaries of colonialism have every right to celebrate the triumph of Rhodesia. They have their right to legitimise the evil legacies of their kith and kin. They are even justified to mythologise their past. David Coltart (2016) has done an exquisite job in that regard through his polarised representation of Zimbabwe from an unrepentant Rhodesian point of view in his book, The Struggle Continues: Fifty Years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe. That is reasonable when it comes from a Rhodesian and not one of us.
A proof colonialism Black denial-ism
The publication featured in this series, Rhodesians Never Die: The Impact of War and Political Change on White Rhodesia, c.1970-1980 represents part of the spirit and symbol of Rhodes being conserved and is still celebrated the same way Rhodesians celebrated the arrival of the pioneer column in our Dzimba dzemabwe on that evil spring of 1890 on 12 September. That day marked the final inception of the imperial trample of our land. The defiled space of their arrival was marked out as the City of Salisbury now called Harare. The place which marked their occupation was christened the Cecil Square (Africa Square) in honour of the grand ancestor of imperialism Cecil John Rhodes. Did he even know that his progeny will honour him and name this new colonial territory after him?
In 1893, Rhodes’ army vanquished the Africans and Rhodesia was born. The history of Madzimbabwe was obliterated by historians hired by Rhodes’ firm, the British South-Africa Company. The annihilation of this history was further complemented by a two-day holiday on July 5 and 6; Rhodes’ Day and Founders’ Day. Part of demolishing the Black memory was accompanied by the accumulating interest to make September 12 another national Sabbath. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the birth of MDC in 1999 and its anti-Mugabe mantra is linked to the month of September. Therefore, is it a coincidence that Rhodesia was born in September and MDC (in its perpetuity of Rhodesian interests) was born on that same month?
Back on the 12th of September 1904, The new Mayor of Salisbury then, Edward Coxwell convened a full programme of events for Rhodesian toddlers, teenagers and adults to celebrate Occupation Day. Of importance on that day was the main ritual which took place at the Cecil Square, near the original spot where the Union Jack was first hoisted. To instill sacredness to this process, a gum pole was erected in front of 250 children. Frank Pascoe, the first child to be born in Salisbury, was given first oath of his patriotic allegiance by re-enacting the flag-raising ceremony. Colonel Raleigh Grey provided a didactic proclamation of how this day came to be and how Rhodesian families there present on that day like many others created this colony. Thereafter, the pioneers and their kindred headed for their eat al fresco at Hartmann Hill. In the evening, the adults held a dinner at the then Commercial Hotel — the present-day Meikles Hotel named after Thomas Meikles, another hero of colonialism. In 1906, the celebration of Occupation Day was repeated, this time the honour of raising the flag went to the first girl to have been born in Salisbury, Florence von Hirschberg. After this, the September flag-hoisting ritual became a continued annual national ceremony. In some years the flag was hoisted by one of the pioneers. In 1932, for example, the flag was raised by Commander Tyndale-Biscoe RN, the man who originally performed this task for the Pioneer Column However, the Rhodesians maintained the precedent of their legacy transfer as children or grand-children of the first pioneers took the lead in the annual flag hoisting ceremonies.
Rhodesia became a sacred part of the triumph of imperialism. This is how the myth of Rhodesia’s immortality was born. In fact, Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock (1993) state that the title of their book Rhodesians Never Die is inspired by a song carrying a similar title by Clem Tholet and Andy Dillion:
We’re all Rhodesians.
We’ll fight through thick and thin.
We’ll keep our land a free land.
Stop the enemy coming in.
We’ll keep them north of the Zambezi.
Till that river’s running dry.
And this mighty land will prosper.
For Rhodesians never die.
From the preface right up to the introduction, the book explains the “indomitable” power of Rhodesia. The two writers argue that “Rhodesians” were oriented to see themselves as superior human beings compared to the Africans they had subjected to colonial rule. The two writers further acknowledge that the term “Rhodesians” referred to Whites and not their Black counterparts. This means that Rhodesia did not recognise the humanity of the Africans. Rhodesia did not even perceive Africans as capable of determining their own destiny. In fact, they were not human and had no destiny. Of note, the prelude of the book does not recognise the independence of 1980 as the triumph of Umvukukela/Chimurenga/African nationalism. The writers choose to call it a triumph of Marxism/Communism/Socialism. It’s as if our struggle for independence was solely influenced by Eurocentric epistemology and not any local revolutionary theoretical weapon. This is because the authors conformed to the attitudes which the Rhodesians held about Africans. The book reveals that the White community never thought that “their Rhodesia” would one day die in the hands of those they regarded as thoughtless and primitive. This is the same way some Africans think that White supremacy would die in America. This goes further to prove that we are victims of what my other friend Kingdom Karuwo refers to as “setting the agenda for the agenda-less”.
The agenda for the agenda-less
Just like Nathaniel Manheru who writes about the
“Man who sued the heavens”, Karuwo argues that there is common belief among Westerners of assuming that we have no credible thinking function. That is an anecdotal fantasy, just as one would think it is possible to “sue the heavens” as aptly put by Manheru, The Herald columnist. Now coming back to the Karuwo theory, White supremacy asserts its dominance on myths of its radicalised self-appointed righteousness. This is noted in their belief that Rhodesia would not fall. Even after the fall of Rhodesia Godwin and Hancock (1993) had the audacity to assume that our knowledge banks are agenda-less and thus must be fed with propaganda which justifies why Rhodesia fell. We know for certain that the fall of colonial Rhodesia was inevitable even after the two republished their book in 2007. We have a big task — to dismantle the symbols of Rhodes attempting to destablise the modernity we inherited from our armed liberation struggle.
Richard Runyararo Mahomva is an independent academic researcher, Founder of Leaders for Africa Network — LAN.
Convener of the Back to Pan-Africanism Conference and the Reading Pan-Africa Symposium (REPS) and can be contacted on [email protected]
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